calicakes

We've been in the room for a good hour, un packing and still no Butler. We've met the room attendant Juliana. I asked her to please send the Butler and nothing nothing. We are going up to the sunset bar for sale away.

I wasn't sure about the sundress, and I didn't want to risk the clothing police. Believe it or not we haven't met the Butler yet. All of the paperwork in our room is calling the retreat Michael's club. I would have thought they changed the name to retreat. I haven't seen a lot of staff walking the hallways, to be honest.

Well we ended up OV for lunch. I know we could have had lunch at Luminae, however, I was wearing a sun dress and did not know if that was acceptable. We're at the pool now.

We've arrived. Check in was smooth. We went to a muster station, our boarding pass was scanned. We went to our room, our sea passes were there. Now we are going to find something to eat.

Probably, however, the metal tray freezes faster and makes bigger cubes that take a long time to melt.

I grew up in S. Florida, maybe that is why I'm addicted to ice. I brought a vintage metal ice cube tray with me on our Feb Oceania cruise, the butler filled it for me and had it frozen. He brought it to my room each morning. LOL. We tipped generously for that.

Here is a quick recap of the last couple of days. Jet lag is real. We had a 9am Electric bike tour booked on Wednesday. We overslept!! At home, the Poodles wake us up at 6:15 every morning for their park visit. With out them as our alarm clock, we slept until 8:30. I knew we(me) couldn't get ready in time for the tour. They would not let us reschedule. 130 bucks down the drain. Plan B. We decided to jump on the Hop on, Hop off bus by the Coliseum. I bought the tix online, we walked down and then spent 15 min trying to figure out where the bus picked up. Once we figured that out, the first bus was full, we were able to get on the 2nd bus. We went 2 stops and got off at the Trevi fountain stop. We had a mediocre lunch and then walked to the fountain and Spanish Steps. At this point, I was getting stressed about the covid tests we had to take before our food walking tour. I was not going to wait for this bus again to make the entire loop around. There goes another 57 bucks down the toilet. We were on the bus for a total of maybe 20 minutes. LOL. We jumped in a taxi and went back to the Airbnb. I took my Emed test, Julie could not find her log in/password for her account. We had taken tests back in February for another cruise. Julie tried to recover her account, but she never received an email. She ended up making an entire new email to re-register. It was a total Sh*t show with me getting very stressed out. Thankfully, we were both Negative. Let's hope we stay that way with the no social distancing here in the city. I thought our food tour started at 6, but nope, we had to be there at 5pm. We took a taxi to the meeting spot. The food tour of Trastevere was fun and informative and we tried a lot of different food items. I've learned I do not like my pasta Al dente!! The tour went until 9pm and we came back to the room and went to sleep. This morning we( along with 7 million other people) did the Vatican/Museum tour. We arrived early and I made the mistake of going into the cafe right across the street. I wanted to buy a pastry since we were very early for our tour. I chose a pastry and the woman rang me up for 3.00. She then said 5.00. I originally handed her a 5 euro bill when I saw 3.00. I said " Its 3" and she said " No, 5. I said " I don't want it'. An employee came over and said " Maybe you can return food in your country, but not in Italy". I began to argue with him, that he is trying to rip me off, etc, etc. I feel so dumb for getting ripped off. I looked at the reviews on Yelp after and everyone said the same thing. Don't go there, they rip people off. How is this even legal? I was really upset and took it personally. The one thing I hate more than anything is getting effed over. I dumped that gross, stale pastry into the trash. Uggggg, DONT GO THERE. We plan to spend the rest of the day, window shopping in our neighborhood. I'm on the hunt for a particular item that has alluded me thus far.

Thank you, we packed our clothes in compression plastic bags. They are like giant zip lock bags.

When you're used to drinking bottled water( as I've been doing for years and years in California), its hard to drink " tap water". We have an RO system at home now and I'm great with that, I know its filtered well.

That is kind of unusual for Brits correct? I remember when I went to the UK in 1994, Ice was hard to come by. We're in Rome now and its the same situation. I actually brought a vintage metal ice cube tray from home and I'm using it in our Airbnb freezer.

We arrived this morning. Flights were all on time. Luggage took almost an hour to arrive. I'm glad we got it all. We had a 3.5 hr nap, then had a colleseum tour at 3pm. Currently waiting for a table at Ai tre scalini.

We will be on Reflection this coming Friday. Our first time in a Suite on X. We're excited.

Its 7pm and we're winding down..... We shared a chicken/mozzarella panini at True Food Kitchen( it was just ok). We walked into Warby Parker and tried on some glasses. LOL. We're so exciting!! We went to Shake Shack afterwards for a frozen custard. Julie is from Wisconsin originally, gotta have her custard. We also picked up one donut from Randy's donuts. They had a satellite location right next to Shake Shack. We checked into the Hilton. The room they gave us was so hot. The A/C was on, however the room was not cooling off. We had to change rooms, I'm glad we didn't start to unpack. They moved us to a higher floor. We have multiple alarms set for 3:35am. We missed a flight one time, now we like to be extra early. We can hang out in the AA lounge before our 7am flight to JFK, then on to Rome. We should arrive in Rome at 7am on Tuesday. We didn't want to fly out on September 11th. Julie is wearing her 9/11 Tribute Shirt.

Lol. I will never be a person who can cruise with just a carry on or a backpack. We would normally have one large and 1 carryon per person, but since we're going business class we took 1 extra suitcase with us. It's going to be fun for Julie carrying all those suitcases up the one flight of stairs at the airbnb.

All packed and on the way to LAX Hilton. Stopping for dinner @ The Point in El Segundo before we park the car at lot. I always use cheap airport parking. Org to find a good rate.

We've observed that, we've been to Crystal River a few times to observe the manatees.

Obviously, I was being facetious. I think its better to observe the wildlife rather than disturb them.

Wonderful review so far. Very nice to see Toronto. I lived in SW. Ontario for 8yrs and I do miss Toronto.

Of course they can leave. I don't agree with the kissing and passing around. PS: How would you feel if a manatee calf( I've been to Homosassa State Park) was picked up and passed around to cuddle/kiss?

The stingrays were being passed around to give a kiss to. I don't think that's natural.

Not on the excursion we were on.

Thanks so much. Its been a stressful couple of years with the defund the police agenda.

I know its not required for the cruise, however, Julie and I went yesterday and had the new Covid booster( the one with omicron). This makes 5 shots for each of us. My last booster was in March 2022. We had ZERO side effects ( except a sore arm)from the vaccine yesterday.

I hated this tour. I felt so sorry for the sting rays AND, the tour operators were so pushy with selling you photos.* it seemed shady that if you paid cash, you'd get all the pics at that very moment, but if you paid by card, they would have to send them to you later. To each their own.

If I had free laundry, I'd send it out mid cruise. We purchased this to use on our upcoming cruise. I know its a mental thing, but it bugs me to see dirty laundry piled up.( probably an issue from my childhood) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08R9QGPGJ?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1